LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



I II I 

011 933 383 



penmalife* 



THE 



HISTORY AND THEORY 



OF 



REVOLUTIONS. 



From the PRINCETON REVIEW for April 1862. 



BY EEV. JOSEPH CLARK, A. M., 

M 
CIIAMBERSBURG, PA. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN, 

No. 606 CHESTNUT STREET. 
1862. 



b. 



^S 



THE 



HISTORY AND THEOM OF REVOLUTIONS. 



1^ The present generation in this country have heretofore 

W known revolutions only as matters of history, or as events 

^^^ occurring in some distant part of the world. We have 

read of them, heard of them with the hearing of the ear; 
but now a revolution, or an attempt at one, has become 
to us a present and most visibly real fact. The word has 
always had, for the public ear, a portentous and startling 
sound. We have been accustomed, and justly so, to connect 
with revolution the idea of civil war, as the world has 
known it hitherto, with all its atrocities and horrors ; its wild, 
uncontrollable phrenzy, setting man against man, and com- 
munity against community, with all the ungovernable fury of a 
tempest; its fratricidal hate and bloodshed; its unleashing 
i all the worst passions of the human heart, which, in their wild 

' and lawless revel, respect not the rights of man or the virtue 

of woman ; its smoking and ruined cities, its pillaged towns, 
its deserted and untilled fields, and all its sanguinary para- 
phernalia of dungeons and scaffolds, guillotines and gibbets, 
armies and battle-fields. Perhaps we have generally derived 
our ideas from the French Revolution of 1792, which was a 
familiar fact to our fathers in their younger days, and of which 
some fragments of the nameless horrors, and wild excesses, and 
almost incredible atrocities, were wont to be rehearsed in 



4 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

youthful ears round many a family hearthstone, and to be 
perused as amongst the earliest lessons in history. 

And now ive are in the midst of a revolution ! We, in this 
republican America, in this lauded nineteenth century, — ?ye, 
devoted to the arts of peace, engrossed in the pursuit of gain, 
covering the seas with our commerce, dragging forth the 
treasures from the mountains, chaining the continent together 
with our iron bands, tilling the broad acres of our wondrous 
and fruitful country, — we, in the midst of a revolution ? It is 
even so ! And have we before us the possibility of an experi- 
ence such as other nations have tasted when overtaken by 
revolution ? No man can say that we have not ! When once 
the social structure moves upon its deep foundations, upheaved 
by the throes of civil convulsion, no prophet's ken can unerr- 
ingly foretell where the movement will stop. All our pre- 
dictions and confidences have failed us. In the very hour of 
our youthful and boastful self-glorification, when we were pro- 
claiming on every hand our confidence in our republican 
experiment, and demonstrating its stability and permanence, 
we are called to go down into the very valley of the shadow of 
death, to have the thick mists settle upon our path, and the 
ground to quake and gape beneath us, and the very air to be 
filled with discordant voices of alarm and doubt, of malediction 
and terror. 

It is well, then, that amid the fearful possibilities with 
which we are environed, we can look back, and calmly, in the 
light of history, study the general laws and workings of such 
national exigencies in the case of other nations. For history, 
whilst it never exactly repeats itself, is a perpetual prophecy 
of its own evolution. It is well that we can look back and see 
other nations, much weaker than our own, survive much'^Worse 
disasters than ours, as yet, appears to be, and even flourish in 
the midst of them. It is well that we are permitted to observe 
how the tui'bulent and brutal passions of men, let loose like hell- 
hounds of havoc and lust by the tocsin of war, are allayed by 
the gentle wand of peace, and how in due time all the virtues, 
and graces, and amenities of social life resume their accustomed 
channels. It is well for us that, amid our fears, we can look 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 5 

back and see, through the wildest surgings of national convul- 
sion and deadly strife, the genius of freedom, both civil and 
religious, rising radiant and beautiful, like beams from the 
ocean spray. It is well that we can announce to ourselves, as 
a clear deduction of history, that no great vital interest of 
mankind, pertaining to Christianity or civilization, has ever 
been harmed by the ravages of war, or the heavings of civil 
commotion. The pole-star of human destiny shines always 
clear above the storm and tempest. God has provided, infalli- 
bly, that no local disturbances, as they seem to us, shall inter- 
fere with the essential facts or grand results of his moral 
government. To suppose otherwise, would be to suppose that 
creation was a freak, and providence a jumble of accidents. 

Let us look, then, if possible, a little into this matter of 
Revolutions. Let us examine their facts, find out if possible 
their theory, and trace some leading outlines of their history — 
keeping in view always the special relations of our investiga- 
tions to the case of our own civil troubles. And it is no afi'ecta- 
tion to say, that when a man ventures to attempt such a theme, 
at such a time as this, it behooves him to gather all his best 
thoughts about him; to weigh well the theories he presents, 
and the judgments he renders ; and to point the eye of inquiry 
and hope to that only which will not finally deceive. 

What, then, is Revolution ? What is its definition ? What its 
theory? What has been its history? When is it justifiable? 
When probably successful? These are questions which may 
indicate the general drift of inquiry which is before us. 

And, first, as to the definition. Revolution may be defined 
to be a radical or organic change in the constitution of govern- 
ment, accomplished either peacefully or violently. Or it may 
be defined to be the successful resistance to established author- 
ity, by, which a new form of authority is instituted and estab- 
lished. Or it may be defined to be the passing aAvay of an old 
form, a worn-out institution, and the uprising of a new one, to 
enter on its career of development and history. In all these 
definitions, the fundamental conceptions are the same. They 
are those of destruction or decay, as preceding new-creation, or 
new-formation of the dissevered elements. In the idea of revo- 



6 Tlie History and Theory of Revolutions. 

lution, the most prominent conception is that of overturning or 
overthrowing, by which society is, to a certain extent, resolved 
into its original elements, and made to take new shape and 
form new combinations. The idea is derived from the motion 
of a wheel, in which every particle is constantly returning to 
the point whence it started — suggesting the fact, that in the 
great movements of history, and the life of nations and civiliza- 
tions, as in the astronomical universe, there is a constant ten- 
dency in all things to return, at least in the direction of the 
point of departure. 

Revolution, to be proper and legitimate, and fulfil the part 
assigned to it in history, must be a movement against that 
which is old, worn-out, unnatural, unreasonable, or oppressive. 
When a government or an institution which may have met the 
wants of men in other ages or other circumstances, is no longer 
able to adapt itself to the changed circumstances and larger 
wants of another age, but has become, on the contrary, 
oppressive and burdensome, brooding, like a horrible night- 
mare, upon the rising energies and aspirations of a new-born 
era, then has the moment come for the great tongue of time 
to strike the hour of revolution, and suddenly armed men 
spring from the earth like the dragon's teeth of Cadmus, a 
shout of defiance and vengeance rends the air, and the new- 
born giant rushes on to his work of destruction. 

Revolution must not be confounded with rebellion or insur- 
rection. Rebellion, as the term indicates, is merely armed 
resistance to authority. Insurrection is merely a rising up 
against authority. Neither need necessarily lead to revolution ; 
although they are often the first symptoms of its coming, the 
first stages of its progress. But rebellion or insurrection may 
be the result of caprice, of passion, of ambition, of jealousy, or 
of mere local causes, and they speedily perish. They may be 
like the mad tiltings of Quixotic knights against windmills and 
airy giants, in which they get only scars and bruises in return. 
But when rebellion is successful, and insurrection puts down 
the authority against which it rises up, then they attain to the 
dignity of revolution. Rebellion is often revolution begun, 
revolution is rebellion accomplished. 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 7 

Having thus defined the term and the thing, it may aid us 
in examining the theory of revolutions. What is the philoso- 
phy of these great throbs in the life of every nation, tliese con- 
vulsive struggles and throes, which form so marked a feature in 
the life of every people who have attained a nationality since 
history began ? And how comes it that the race does not seem 
to be outgrowing these portentous phenomena, even with the 
aids of the highest civilization and the purest Christianity? 
Whenever we find a fact so universal and perpetual as this, we 
may be sure that its cause lies deep, and its theory is bound 
up with the organic laws, and perhaps the very vitality, of the 
race. 

Let us turn to nature, and study her lessons. Everywhere 
revolution — according to the fundamental conception of it as 
defined above — appears as an essential and healthful part of 
her vital processes. In all the universe, so far as man knows 
it, there is nothing at rest. Everything is in motion. As the 
gentle Cowper beautifully expresses it, 

"Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel 
That nature rides upon, maintains her health, 
Her beauty, her fertility; she dreads 
An instant's pause, and lives but while she moves." 

All nature is a perpetual circulation of matter, and in this 
perpetual motion the leading factors are the antagonistic forces 
of life and death, growth and decay. Old forms fade, wither, 
die, dissolve, that new forms may start into life and beauty, 
only to fade, wither, die, dissolve again. The fruit ripens, 
decays, falls to the earth, and carries with it the vital seed, 
which, under favourable conditions, springs up a new, fruit- 
bearing tree. Life, death, birth, decay, beauty, deformity, 
growth, dissolution, are the alphabet with which nature makes 
up her wondrous story — the figures which move in her myste- 
rious drama. 

"My heart is awed within mo when I think 
Of the great miracle which still goes on 
In silence round me; the perpetual work 
Of thy creation finished, yet renewed 
For ever." 



8 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

Nature, then, is full of revolutions. Revolution is the law 
of her life, the music of her mighty march. Spring, summer, 
autumn, winter, day, night, cold, heat, are each respectively a 
revolution on the other. 

Now a law, analogous to this which thus pervades all nature, 
is, or seems to be, the law of national life. If we fail to see at 
once the accuracy or precision of its analogy, it is only because 
Its cycles are so great, and its periods so long, that we can 
take but a few of them within the scope of our vision. It is 
only by a careful study of the whole history of national 
experience, that we arrive at the comprehensive generalization, 
that revolution is a perpetual agency in national develop- 
ment. 

The educated mind of the age is becoming possessed of an 
ever-strengthening conviction that this universe, both material 
and moral— the universe of matter, and of men— is governed 
by laws, in a much wider as well as more minute sense than is 
ordinarily comprehended,— laws so steady and accurate that in 
a given period, amidst manifold variations, they will give us 
the same general average of cold and heat, of sunshine and 
cloud, of rain and drought,— laws so steady that in a given 
population, in ordinary circumstances, the same number of 
persons will die, the same number be born, the same number 
be married in a given period,— laws so steady, though obscure, 
that in the millions of births which occur annually, the proper 
numerical relation of the sexes is preserved,— laws so steady, 
though inscrutable, that in a given population, in ordinary cir- 
cumstances, the same number of crimes will be committed, 
of each particular kind, the same number of punishments for 
the crimes will be suffered, and the same number of good deeds 
of virtue, benevolence, and charity, will be performed,— laws 
so steady, in short, that, in the same circumstances, masses of 
men will feel alike, and think alike, and act alike. The 
elements and laws of human nature, whilst exhibiting all the 
diversity of manifestation, within certain limits, which prevails 
in the physical world, are as steadfast and permanent in their 
essential characteristics as the laws of the material universe. 
Hence the perpetually recurring phenomena of history, that 
power, long wielded, begets oppression; oppression, long 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 9 

endured, begets resentment and resistance; and resistance 
begets revolution. So long, then, as these things are so— so 
long as human nature remains unchanged in its essential 
features — must we regard revolutions as indispensable stadia 
in the path of national progress, indispensable factors in the 
problem of human destiny, indispensable evils, if Ave prefer to 
call them so, with which mankind must be afflicted — as indis- 
pensable as tempest and lightning, hail and snow, in the natural 
world. 

It is one of the amiable weaknesses of many good people, to 
affect to think, in their horror of incidental evils and wicked- 
ness, that they could govern God Almighty's moral world 
better than he does himself — at least that they are competent 
to instruct him how to govern it better. We refer to the 
absurdities and impieties so frequent in prayer. We opine it 
is better to adapt ourselves to things as they are, or must be, 
or may become, and to believe that the mystic weaver who sits 
above the clouds understands from the beginning the texture 
and colour of the web he is weaving, though he may not always 
throw the shuttle just as we might desire. 

The theory of revolutions then is, that with all their hideous 
and gory surroundings, they are the inevitable throes and pangs 
by which the old, the worn-out, the useless, the oppressive, are 
overthrown, and the new and hopeful introduced. They are 
always the symptoms of vitality seeking to assert itself — of life 
warring with death. 

Revolution may be accomplished peacefully, without dis- 
turbance or violence ; but this is not the ordinary law of its 
operation. It is the exception, not the rule, in national 
affairs. The old may pass away, and the new come in without 
jarring or discord, like the soft twilight of evening settling 
gently over the bed of the king of day ; but the change is 
oftencst made with confused noise and garments rolled in 
blood. ) When the gigantic monarch of the forest has fulfilled 
its cycle of centuries; when its heart of oak has imperceptibly 
dropped away in decay, leaving but a thin, hollow shell to bear 
the weight of the limbs and trunk above, and to withstand the 
pressure of the storm, it is still possible that it may drop away 
piecemeal, one limb after another, until nothing be left but the 



10 TJie History and Theory of Revolutions. 

splintered and hollow trunk; but the much greater proba- 
bility is, that at a certain point of its decay, on a stormy 
•winter's night, the wings of the tempest will seize it in their 
sweep, and as the wild chorus howls among the branches, the 
ancient trunk will crackle and snap, and the huge hulk of the 
giant of centuries fall to the earth with a crash ihat startles 
from their coverts the denizens of the forest. 

Before passing on to the history of revolutions, it may be 
well for us to give some attention to the question. When is 
revolution justifiable? When is a people justified in taking the 
assertion of their inalienable rights into their own hands in a 
revolutionary way? When may existing governments or insti- 
tutions be justly overthrown, if need be, by force? It is mani- 
fest that this is a very serious question. It runs the dividing 
line between wicked rebellion and righteous revolutionj It is, 
moreover, a very practical question, one which must be 
decided by almost every generation of men in one form or 
another. It is a question which has been often and much dis- 
cussed. Philosophers, statesmen, lawgivers, kings, poets, 
orators, reformers,^ theologians, have all had occasion, with 
such ability as they may have had, to discuss it, for the benefit 
of themselves or others. Monarchs trembling upon their 
thrones, statesmen called to guide the helm of state amid 
stormy seas, philosophers in the seclusion of their studies, 
poets and orators firing the popular heart under the goading 
wrongs of centuries, reformers cleaving asunder the abuses of 
corrupt, disjointed times, and pious divines, earnest pastors of 
churches, having, in some measure, the care of the consciences 
as well as the souls of their flocks, have all, at times, by the 
necessities of their positions, been compelled to form for them- 
selves a theory, and proclaim a doctrine, designed either to 
disprove entirely the right of revolution, or to assert it, and to 
define the limits within which it may be exercised. 

If we accept the definition and theory of revolution which we 
have endeavoured to give, it is evident that the right of revolu- 
tion do^ exist in every society. It is a latent ingredient in 
every political state, to be called forth by a necessity more or 
less stringent, according as the antecedents, and whole con- 
catenation of circumstances, historic and ethnic, may require* 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 11 

If this is not so, then despotism is the true theory of human 
government. If there is no right of revolution, then humanity 
is helplessly prostrate at the feet of any existing authority. If 
there is no such right, then any crowned Nero, or Caligula, or 
Philip II., may ride iron-shod over our liberties, may fetter^ 
our consciences, prescribe for us our religion, confiscate our 
property, make conscripts of our sons, and concubines of our 
daughters, and no murmur of injustice, or imprecation of 
"wrath, must be heard. But this cannot be. Humanity was 
not made to be thus the plaything of despots. Readily as we 
admit the divine constitution of government, and admit even 
the divine sanction of kingly or monarchical government, for 
certain ends, and under certain limitations, we assert with 
equal readiness the divine origin of the rights of man. The 
one is a divine factor, which works over against and modifies 
the other. When one divine factor becomes untrue to its 
origin, another, equally divine, takes up the divine work of 
destroying it, and vindicating its own sacredness. In other 
words, when government, through human wickedness, becomes 
false to itself, and divorces itself from its own divinity, in 
whole or in part, then the divine afilatus blows the trumpet \ 
blast of revolution. And thus history ever oscillates between 
the forces which play upon it on this side and on that. 

But however men may theorize, they never fail to exercise 
the right of revolution when the necessity of the case demands 
it. Like the peace-principles of the Quakers, their anti-revo- 
lution speculations give way before the pressure of actual fact. 
The instincts of mankind are stronger than their doctrines. 
"Oppression maketh" even "a wise man mad." There is a 
point, even, at which the timid stag, hunted over mountain and 
valley, and finding the yelping pack coming closer and closer 
upon his failing steps, turns panting and furious at bay, and 
plunges his antlers into the nearest foe.* There is a right of 
revolution, then, which God never intended should be taken 
from men, until he brings in that more perfect constitution of 
human affairs, when there shall be nothing to hurt or destroy 
in all his holy mountain. 

* Rev. George Frazer, General Assembly of 1861. 



12 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

But admitting the right, we return to the query, When is its 
exercise justifiable? Perhaps no specific and definite answer 
can be given, suitable to all cases. Each case must be decided 
on its own merits, and, as a matter of fact, each case will 
decide itself in its own issue. But we may venture some 
general suggestions. 

It is evident that as revolution is a last resort, an extreme 
measure, an ulterior remedy for the ills of the body politic, 
it ought not to be resorted to for light or trivial causes. The 
means must hold proper relation to the end. A man may 
take life in self-defence, and stand unimpeached of justice; 
but he cannot do so to avenge a slight indignity. Revolution 
can never be justified as a matter of caprice, or of mere 
party passion, or the ambitious schemings of demagogues, 
or the desire of mere local or sectional aggrandizement. 
There must be the endurance of actual wrongs — not merely 
the imagination of prospective wrongs — but the actual en- 
durance of goading and painful wrong. A man cannot 
justly take the life of his neighbour under the apprehension 
that at some future time his own may be imperilled. And 
as an extreme measure, its proper place is after all others 
have failed. A last resort must not be a first resort. Every 
pacific measure must be tried, every peaceful remedy must 
be attempted and found unavailing, every possible effort 
must be patiently and perseveringly made to secure justice 
and right, and found futile, before an oppressed people can 
rightfully arise in their might,) summoned by a call more 
potent than the bugle blast of Roderic, or the great iron 
tongue of the bell Roland in Ghent, to shake off the shackles 
of perverted authority, and overthrow the strongholds of abused 
power. 

There is always a strong presumption in favour of estab- 
lished institutions — a strong presumption in favour of existing 
government. The fact that it is, is prima facie evidence, until 
the contrary is proved, that it ought to be. Although despot- 
ism, for instance, or monarchy, is always more or less of an 
usurpation — rests, first or last, upon usurpation — yet it becomes 
the means or occasion of government — it actualizes govern- 
ment — and the usurpation disappears as the history moves on, 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 13 

and in manifold circumstances it may be best adapted to the 
wants of men. And in a rude and unprepared age, when men 
need to be under tutors and governors, the man would be justly 
branded as a wild enthusiast and madman, who should raise 
the standard of revolution, and rally men around the chimera 
of an ideal and impossible republicanism, based upon the 
abstract rights of man. ■ 

There is one general rule or formula which has been often 
referred to and quoted since our own civil troubles commenced, 
which is, perhaps, as just and comprehensive as any that can 
be found as a criterion of revolution. It is this; — that the 
actual evils endured must he so great, that the evils of the revo- 
lution will he less : or that the ultimate good to he gained must 
he so great, that the aggravated evils of the revolution may he 
endured for the sake of it. Before, however, entering upon 
this survey, we would remark that the question, when a revo- 
lution is profitable, is a matter of conscience, rather than of 
expediency. The great principle conservative of human rights 
and of the well-being of society, is, that we are bound to obey 
God rather than man. When any human law conflicts with 
the divine law, it ceases to bind the conscience. That divine 
law is revealed, not only in the Scriptures, but in the consti- 
tution of our nature. Whether the human does conflict with 
the divine law, is a question for the individual conscience. In 
cases of such conflict, it is our duty to refuse obedience, as did 
the apostles, but not necessarily actively to resist. Eevolution, 
or the overthrow of established government, therefore, is not 
justifiable on caprice, or at the discretion of the people; nor 
on account of unwise or unequal legislation; nor simply for 
the object of benefiting the condition of the people. Rebcl- 
lioD, or the attempt to overthrow a legitimate authority by 
force of arms, is justifiable — 1. Only when obedience to that 
government is disobedience to God. 2. When the evil admits 
of no other remedy. 3. When there is a fair prospect of suc- 
cess. False as is the principle that ability limits obligation in 
other spheres, in that of external action it is self-evidently 
true. A child is not bound to resist a ruffian about to commit 
murder. A strong man is bound. Whether the Scotch were 
right in resisting, by force of arms, the attempt of Charles II. 



14 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

to impose prelacy upon them, or the English in opposing 
James II. in his efforts to introduce Popery, depended on the 
two questions — 1. Whether the evil could be otherwise pre- 
vented; and 2. Whether they had the power to prevent it. If 
they could do it, they were bound to do it. It is doubtful 
whether anything more definite than this can be given, and 
with it we pass on to consider the history of revolutions, and to 
draw some contrasts between some of the great leading revolu- 
tions of modern times, and the present Southern rebellion in 
our own country. 

History has been defined as " philosophy teaching by expe- 
rience." In other words, the actual is always the best measure 
of the possible. And, indeed, for certain practical purposes, a 
thorough, intelligent study of history is worth more than all 
the metaphysical speculation that has accumulated since the 
days of Adam. History holds up the mirror to man's nature, 
and reveals to him, by the reality of what has been, the possi- 
bility of what may be, nay, of what must be ; for the laws of 
human action, and the operation of human motive, are as inex- 
orable as the laws of matter, and the forms and shapes of the 
future already lie dimly, yet definitely, outlined in the forms 
and shapes of the past. If, then, we are able to lay the phe- 
nomena of this Southern rebellion side by side with some of 
those great movements in the past which are appropriately 
styled revolutions; if we are able to compare their antece- 
dents, their motives and causes, their general phenomena and 
general features, it may enable us, in some measure, to deter- 
mine whether this civil trouble which is upon us is a revolution, 
or only a rebellion. 

It will not be possible, in the limited space of a single arti- 
cle, to attempt a general history of revolutions. We might as 
well attempt a history of the world. Suffice it to say, that 
every great nation, both ancient and modern, without a single 
exception, so far as we know, has repeatedly felt the earth- 
quake shocks of revolution. All have, at times, trembled to 
their very centres, and, in many instances, the whole fabric of 
government has gone down, as with a crash that startled the 
world, into dismemberment and chaos, and from amidst the 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 15 

fragments a new form has arisen, to gird itself with youthful 
vigour and hope for the career of national greatness. 

It will serve our purpose to select three or four prominent 
examples from comparatively modern history, with which to 
institute the comparison. These examples will be the revolu- 
tion in the Netherlands in the latter half of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, which gave rise to the Dutch Republic; the French 
Revolution of 1792 ; the Cromwellian Revolution in England 
in 1649, and to these we will add the American Revolution of 
1776. This Southern movement, by the magnitude it has 
assumed, and the claims it has put forth, must either take its 
rank along with these in the annals of the future, or sink, 
crushed and broken, into the oblivion in which lie the countless 
abortive rebellions and insurrections of which history has 
scarcely deigned to make chronicle. 

We will endeavour to present some salient points of com- 
parison and contrast. 

First, and chiefly, as to the provocation or evils endured, 
which excited to armed resistance to authority. Let history 
remove the mask of delusion under which our Southern 
brethren have so hastily rushed to arms. If they have thought 
themselves aggrieved, let them consider what others have borne 
before venturing into the abyss into which they have so reck- 
lessly plunged. In the case of the Netherland Revolution, 
the story of wrongs, long and patiently borne, is one of the 
most heart-rending and monstrous which has been left us in all 
the annals of time. On the abdication of Charles I., his son 
Philip II. succeeded to the crown of Spain. Few characters 
in history present all the worst features of the despot in so 
intense a form. Besides the crown of Spain, he inherited a 
hereditary sovereignty in the Netherlands as Duke or Count of 
Holland and Flanders; a sovereignty, however, limited and 
defined by constitutions, and charters, and privileges, granted 
and confirmed to the Provinces long before, and making the 
government as strictly a constitutional monarchy as is that of 
England at this day. During his first visit to the Netherhnids, 
a summer was spent in festivities ; the opulent cities of that 
great hive of industry vicing with each other in the magnifi- 
cent banquets, and cavalcades, and ceremonies, by which he 



16 The\ History and Theory of Revolutions. 

exchanged oaths of mutual fidelity with them all. He swore 
unreservedly to support and maintain inviolate all the constitu- 
tions, and charters, and privileges, which had been confirmed 
to them by his predecessors, and by which his sovereignty was 
limited and his government regulated. And now, monstrous 
and difficult of belief as it may seem, we are forced to the con- 
viction that all this was mere dissimulation and sham. From 
that very moment the whole policy of his government, backed 
by the power of Spanish armies, was to trample upon all these 
constitutions, and charters, and privileges, to treat them as 
nullities, to punish as a traitor any one who dared insist on 
their sacredness, and to erect over the doomed Provinces an 
authority dependent on nothing, limited by nothing, defined by 
nothing but his own personal, absolute, despotic will. To 
accomplish this purpose, deception and dissimulation were 
resorted to which seem scarcely human. With fair promises, 
and specious protestations and^ blandishments, he lulled the 
suspicious and restless victims of his tyranny, whilst his private 
correspondence shows that his deliberate purpose was to bind 
upon their limbs more firmly the fetters of political and 
ecclesiastical slavery. State papers and despatches were sent 
to his regents to be published as instructions from the throne, 
when the same courier carried private messages to the same 
officials instructing them to do just the reverse. Netherland 
noblemen were invited to Spain on missions of confidence, and 
kept there under strict surveillance, and in due time poisoned 
or assassinated, and messages of condolence sent to their 
friends, informing them that they had died peacefully and trust- 
fully believing that God had mercy on their souls. The Counts 
of Egmont and Horn, two leading Netherland nobles, were 
invited to Brussels to share the hospitality of the newly- 
arrived Duke of Alva. The revelry of a merry banquet lasted 
late in the hours of the night, after which the two nobles were 
invited to a private interview with the Duke. Scarcely had 
they entered his room when they were arrested and sent to 
close confinement, and shortly afterwards publicly beheaded in 
the horsemarket. Troops of foreign soldiery overran the 
country, and overlooking every important city was a powerful 
citadel erected, to overawe the turbulent populace. All this 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 17 

"was done with deliberate purpose, and prior to all provocation, 
except that which arose, at the several steps, from protests and 
complaints against the violations of ancient rights. He levied 
upon them taxes and imposts the most arbitrary and monstrous, 
and he punished, with all the exquisite arts of torture, all 
deviations from the established religion. The Inquisitors whom 
he sent amongst them assumed a license, and practised a scrutiny 
and cruelty in the discovery and punishment of heresy, most 
frightful to think of. And yet the Netherlanders scarcely 
thoucrht of revolution ! Some local scenes of turbulence and 
resistance occurred, but it was not until every right had been 
trampled in the dust, every feeling of honour and patriotism 
outraged, every hope of relief by constitutional methods dissi- 
pated, that the sagacious and heroic William of Orange was 
able to organize a combined and effectual resistance. And 
even that had to be done under the fiction of making war, as 
Philip's stadtholder, upon Philip's governors, for the vindi- 
cation of the ancient laws. And when a down-trodden and 
insulted people did at last thus arise, and not pray, but demand 
a recognition of their ancient charters, he answered them by a 
visitation of the most horrible cruelties which the imagination 
can conceive. He sacked their cities, he devastated their 
fields, his brutal soldiery butchered their old men and children 
by thousands, and ravished their women by hundreds in the 
churches and market-places. By a sweeping decree he con- 
demned the whole population of the Netherlands to death, 
every man, woman, and child, with some few exceptions, which 
were named; so that his officials could hang up, without 
question or form of trial, any one whom they suspected of 
having an aspiration of liberty in his breast. Here, then, was 
an occasion for revolution. Nay, all history would have sanc- 
tioned a revolution in the Netherlands long before it occurred. 
When laAvs which protected the citizen against arbitrary 
imprisonment, and guarantied him a trial in his own province,* 
which forbade the appointment of foreigners to high office, 
which secured the property of the citizen from taxation 
except by the representative body, wliich forbade the inter- 

* Motley. 



18 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

meddling of the sovereign with the conscience of the sub- 
ject in religious matters, — when such laws had been sub- 
verted by Blood Tribunals, whose drowsy judges sentenced 
thousands to the scaffold and the stake without a hearing, — when 
excommunication, confiscation, banishment, hanging, behead- 
ing, burning, were practised to such enormous extent, and with 
such terrible monotony, that the executioner's sword came to 
be looked upon as the only symbol of justice, — when cruelties too 
monstrous for description, too vast to be believed by a mind 
not familiar with the outrages practised by the soldiers of Spain 
and Italy, were daily enacted, — then, surely, if ever, might 
the shrill voice of humanity shriek out from amid her blood 
and tears, and call upon her mail-clad warriors to avenge her 
wrongs. And we would say, in a word, by way of application, 
that if our brethren in the Southern states had endured a tithe, 
nay, a hundredth part, of the wrongs which the patient Dutch 
of the sixteenth century had inflicted upon them, they would 
be justified in this rebellion. 

Let us look now at the second great example named, the 
French Revolution of 1792. This is spoken of distinctively as 
the French Revolution, because of the magnitude of its results, 
and the terrific interest of its attendant circumstances, although 
there have been several revolutions and changes of dynasties 
in France within living memory. It is common for many 
persons to think and speak of the French Revolution only as a 
volcanic outburst of infidelity and bloodshed. They think of 
it only as a Reign of Terror, in which such demons of impiety 
and cruelty as Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, rode triumphant 
upon the wave. In looking at the excesses to which the move- 
ment ran, they lose sight of the central current of the movement 
itself. The rebound is always in proportion to the pressure in the 
opposite direction, and if the French Revolution ran into lament- 
able and disastrous excesses, it was mainly because the freedom 
which it inaugurated was rescued from the thraldom of such 
an intolerable oppression, its excesses assisted also by the mer- 
curial temperament of the French people. But the Reign of 
Terror was not the French Revolution. The French Revolu- 
tion was a tremendous and overwhelming revolt against the 
combined tyranny of a feudal nobility, a dissolute court and 



Tlie History and Theory of Revolutions. 19 

clergy, and an absolute sovereign, each forging a separate 
chain by which to bind and oppress the mass of the nation 
The feudal system of the Middle Ages, which was a good thing 
in its time, a good thing in times when every individual man 
needed a protector, and was fain to attach himself to some 
powerful chieftain who was able to secure him in his rights 
of person and property, and for which protection he was 
willing to render service of labour or arms — this feudal system 
reached its culmination in France, and in the eighteenth century 
had become the embodiment of insupportable abuses. The 
feudal lords, who owned most of the soil, were as about one to 
two hundred and fifty of the population ; and yet so absolute 
and minute, so detailed and specific were their exclusive rights, 
that the two hundred and fifty, or the greater part of them, 
were little better than the slaves of the one. To cite a 
single and apparently trivial instance — and we cite it as 
a representative instance — they possessed the exclusive right 
to keep pigeons, and it was their privilege to let them loose 
upon the fields in sowing time, and the toiling peasant dared 
not raise a finger in resistance or protest. As owners of the 
soil, they absorbed nearly the whole productive wealth of the 
nation, leaving the peasant and artisan scarcely the neces- 
saries of life. This vast income they expended in show, and 
in profligate and dissolute ways, and yet refused to contribute 
their just proportion to the expenses of government, causing 
the taxes to fall with inconceivable severity upon the already 
oppressed labouring and other classes. They obstinately 
resisted all reforms, and clung with ferocious tenacity to 
their hereditary privileges. Add to this the equal tyranny 
of an absolute sovereign, whose prodigal and dissolute court, 
whose expensive wars, and whose wasteful squandering of the 
public money upon favourites and parasites only added to 
the heavy burdens already entailed by the feudal nobility; 
and add, also, the officious and intermeddling presence every- 
where of a thoroughly debased and mercenary, yet powerful 
clergy, oppressing the conscience as well as the estate, and 
we have an abundant occasion, if history can furnish one, for a 
thorough and radical revolution. 

From beneath this incubus of ages, the enlightened mind of 



20 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

the eighteenth century in France sprang with a tremendous 
rebound, and the world shook with the concussion. Out of the 
chaos emerged, amid blood and fire, and the wild shouts of a 
freed and almost frantic people, first a brief and delusive 
republicanism, afterwards a healthier and better form of con- 
stitutional monarchy. Its odious features and its so-called 
failure notwithstanding, France owes an incalculable debt to 
her great revolution. At the time of the revolution, all the 
privileged classes combined — and there were numerous grades 
of them — constituted but one-thirtieth of the population ; the 
other twenty-nine thirtieths, composed of peasants, artisans, 
merchants, manufacturers, scholars, philosophers, men of 
science, lawyers, physicians, were what was called the Third 
Estate, in other words, the people, who then possessed neither 
rights nor privileges as citizens, but who have been a power in 
history ever since. 

And we would say here again, briefly, by way of application, 
that if the Southern states of this Union had been oppressed 
with burdens and disabilities half as heavy and odious as those 
laid upon the unprivileged Third Estate of France before the 
revolution, they would be justified in this rebellion. 

We pass now to the third historical example named, the 
revolution in England under Cromwell. 

This had for its basis two fundamental ideas, viz., resistance 
to the encroachments of the royal prerogative, and the asser- 
tion of the rights of conscience. During the two previous 
reigns of James I. and Charles I., the most strenuous and per- 
severing efibrts had been made to extend the royal prerogative, 
so that even the Magna Charta of King John, the sheet-anchor 
of constitutional liberty under monarchical government, was in 
danger of being superseded, or its effect seriously thwarted. 
And the religious persecution had also been most stringent, 
showing the determined purpose on the part of the sovereign 
to crush the religious sentiment of the nation into the Procrus- 
tean form of an established hierarchy. Against this double 
usurpation, joined with a most flagrant deterioration of the 
public morals, the spirit of liberty and the awakened conscience 
of the nation revolted, and the whole fabric of monarchy went 
down, for a time, before the psalm-singing legions of the great 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 21 

Oliver. And though the change was but temporary, and Eng- 
land soon returned to the flesh-pots of her kingly Egypt, yet 
the effects of it are most marked and salutary to this day, not 
only in English history, but in the history of religious liberty 
throughout the world. "Freedom to worship God" was its 
watchword, and its legacy to our own time. 

And we will add here, too, that if the rights of conscience 
had been trampled upon in the South, if there had been an 
attempt to establish a religious inquisition, or a censorship in 
the worship of God, and all other means of redress had failed, 
they would have been justified in revolution. 

We will glance now at our fourth and last historical exam- 
ple, the American Revolution of 1776. 

An attempt has been made by the Southern leaders and 
newspapers, to claim the advantage of this great example, 
which is a matter of common history and common pride with 
us all. They say to us, that if the colonies could justly assert 
their independence of the mother country, then "we can with 
equal justice claim and assert our independence of you." But 
let us observe that the cases are by no means similar in their 
essential features. In the first place, there is no parallel in 
the character or nature of the two cases. The American revo- 
lution was not a revolution in the sense in which the Southern 
rebellion is necessarily a revolution, if it attain to that dignity 
at all. It was no organic disruption of society, no radical dis- 
integration of the framework of government. It was a mere 
separation of certain governmental dependencies from a distant 
sovereignty, Avith which, though largely affiliated in origin and 
language, they had scarcely anything in common in respect to 
governmental polity and tendencies. The colonies were no 
incorporated, functional members oft tlie British government, 
and their severance left that government whole and sound in 
all its parts. Not so with our Southern states. They are 
part and parcel of the organic whole of the nation. They 
were, to a large extent, agents and actors in all the functions 
of government. In fact, they had the lion's share, both in 
the honours and emoluments of office, since the formation of 
the government. They are separated from us by no natural 
boundary. We are visibly bound together by those grand 



22 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

physical features of the continent, which are more potent than 
compacts and constitutions, and Avhich declare unmistakeably 
the organic oneness of our national life. Between the waters 
which leap from the frozen jBssures of the Rocky Mountains, 
and those which spread their calm bosom to the tropical sun of 
the Gulf of Mexico, there stretches a continuous, unbroken 
relationship, by virtue of a great law of nature, which can only 
be interrupted by the destruction of the great Father of Waters 
himself. So the natural oneness, the organic wholeness of our 
national existence, can only be destroyed by the violation of 
the great manifest laws of our being. Hence the revolution 
which our Southern patriots, as they call themselves, would 
justify by the example of that of our fathers, is a far more 
radical and destructive revolution, and ought to be sanctioned 
by more potent and manifest causes and provocations. But in 
this respect, also, the example fails them. The colonies 
revolted against grievances more tangible and real than those 
which the heated passions or base designs of partisans and 
demagogues have used to inflame the deluded people of the 
South. They were subjected to an unnatural and oppressive 
system of taxation — unnatural and oppressive because forced 
upon them entirely from without, and for purposes in which 
they had little interest. They were subjected to taxation 
without representation, whilst our Southern revolutionists have 
had, to some extent, representation without taxation. They 
were denied trial by jury on their own soil for certain offences. 
They were made to bear the burden of large standing armies 
for foreign purposes. They were cramped and harassed in 
their whole internal policy by the domineering interference of 
a distant and selfish sovereignty. They rebelled, not from 
caprice, or passion, or acgbition, but from necessity. And we 
hesitate not to say, that if our Southern brethren could put 
forth a Declaration of Independence which would stand the 
scrutiny of fact, such as was put forth on the 4th of July, 
1776, they would be justified in this rebellion. 

But, instead of all this, what have we? What have been 
their grievances? Have they been hanged and burned, drawn 
and quartered, like the patient Netherlanders? Have their 
ancient constitutions, charters, and privileges, been trampled in 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 23 

tlie dust? Instead of this, they have been continually 
strengthened by new guaranties, and conciliatory propositions 
were thrown into the very jaws of the revolt. Have they been 
held under hard taskmasters, and bound to unrequited toil, like 
the Third Estate of France before the Revolution? Have they 
been persecuted for conscience' sake, like the Puritans of the 
reign of James I. ? Have they been oppressed and goaded by 
unthinking tyranny, like the American colonists? Instead of 
all this, or any of it, what have been the facts? They have 
been nursed and fondled by the nation. They have shared the 
choicest of her gifts. They have given shape and form to her 
general policy. They have had the most extraordinary con- 
cessions made to them. So long and patiently did the North 
yield to their ever-enlarging demands, that they themselves 
instinctively scorned us as dough-faces. The general govern- 
ment has always been specially and paternally tender of their 
welfare, and even of their prejudices. Many of the leading 
measures of governmental policy in years past have been taken 
specially in their interest. They have been nourished and 
cherished into greatness, and wealth, and prosperity, all of 
which they have hazarded in the vortex of revolution, lured by 
a chimera of no tangible outline or actual form ! 

We confess that they have not been free from grievances, as 
viewed from their own peculiar stand-point; not grievances, 
however, growing out of the public policy or acts of the govern- 
ment, but rather out of the opinions and temper of the people 
of the North. The chief of these grievances has arisen from 
what all Americans in former years supposed to be one of their 
inalienable rights, viz., freedom of speech and freedom of dis- 
cussion. We can readily imagine how goading it must 
have been to a Southern slaveholder, who had fully pos- 
sessed liimself with the idea, not only of the rightfulness and 
beneficence of slavery, but of its vast superiority to every other 
system as a basis for civilized society, to hear it discussed and 
questioned in the North, to hear it denounced, in the language 
of Wesley, as the "sum of all villanies," to sec its enormities 
exposed in the vivid light of fiction, to see its workings held up 
in the cold, calm glare of statistics, to hear its merits in a 
moral view tested in the crucible of the universal conscience, in 



24 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

short, to have it thought about, and talked about, and written 
about, badgered and beaten hither and thither with the re- 
morseless battledores of logic or no-logic, by those who, in his 
view, had nothing to do with it — all this, we say, we can readi- 
ly imagine to have been excessively annoying. But is this, or 
anything like it, to justify revolution? Then, indeed, must 
human society be bound with ropes of sand. Are we to put 
the moral sense of all Christendom under the ban because it is 
against us? Rather should this lead us to question the infal- 
libility of our own conclusions. Is this the sort of wrong, long 
and patiently borne, which demands that society shall return 
to chaos and reorganization ? Assuredly not, or society is a 
fiction, and history a myth. Our Southern brethren have 
never been oppressed, or grieved, or wronged, in any such sense 
as has fired the hearts and nerved the arms of revolutionists in 
days of yore. What shall we say then? What does history 
say, speaking to us by example, her voice pealing through the 
long and gory ages of the past? Her utterance is this, if we 
have interpreted it aright, that, judged by all the past, tested 
by all the criteria of great and successful revolutions in other 
lands, measured by the motives and provocations which have 
goaded men in other years to deeds of violence and bloodshed, 
this Southern rebellion is the most causeless revolution ever 
attempted in the annals of time ! It is, in fact, a revolution, 
not against oppression, not against injustice, not against civil 
or religious disability, but a revolution against the census and 
against the ballot-box. It is a convulsive grasp after waning 
and departing power. 

If we turn now to the second member of our definitive limi- 
tation of the justifiableness of revolution, viz., that "the ulti- 
mate good to be gained must be so great that the aggravated 
evils of the revolution may be endured for the sake of it" — we 
will find that the present rebellion must suffer in the compari- 
son with either of the four great revolutions we have indicated. 
They all had a purpose, an object, an ultimate good, toward 
the achievement of which they tended and struggled, and the 
realization of which was worth any amount of privation and 
suffering within the limits of human endurance. They were all 
manifestly moved by those great world ideas which work them- 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 25 

selves out into great and permanent results in the history of 
mankind. The Netherlands Revolution was a contest in the 
interest of civil and religious liberty throughout all Christen- 
dom — in the interest, in other words, of Protestantism, which 
was then engaged in a life and death struggle for its own 
existence. In that little, amphibious corner of the north of 
Europe, the genius of human freedom stood at bay, and defied 
the power of absolutism in church and state, and its victory 
in the strife rescued European civilization from the clutch of 
despotism, and the human conscience from the thraldom of 
priestly usurpation. The Reformation was there on trial for 
a history or a grave. There can be no doubt that a different 
result would have been followed by the subjugation of England, 
the arrest and ruin of the Reformation in Germany, and thus 
all Europe, and perhaps America too, would have been at the 
feet of two monster powers, the empire of Spain and the Papal 
throne. In such a cause, even such scenes as the sack of 
Haarlem or the siege of Leyden can be endured, nay, must be 
endured, if humanity is true to its own exigencies. 

The French Revolution was a contest in which the essential 
rights of man were involved as against unrelenting oppression. 
Any one who makes himself at all familiar with the condition 
of France before the Revolution, must see at once that the 
time had fully come for a thorough and radical reorganization 
of tlie whole framework of society. The old, effete, and bur- 
densome institutions of a former era were tottering to their 
fall, or pressing like an incubus upon the awakened energies of 
a great people. There was no ordinary possibility that the old 
order of things could continue, unless the whole nation sank 
into torpor and death; or that it could be changed, save by the 
sweeping charge of the hurricane. Events are stronger than 
men; and when an unseen power from beneath impels the 
movement, men ride but as straws upon the wave. Whenever 
a revolution is impelled by the quickening pulse of new-born 
national life, then no sacrifice is too great, no endurance too 
severe, to purchase the boon of success. 

The Cromwellian Revolution had for its object the conserva- 
tion of the constitutional rights of the realm, the purification 
of the social and political fabric, and the defence of the rights 



26 Tlie History and Theory of Revolutions. 

of conscience. Its ultimate good, for which it plunged the 
English nation into revolution, has been suiScientlj attested 
by its influence upon Anglo-Saxon history and morals every- 
where, and upon the subsequent history of the British monar- 
chy. No price is too dear to pay for that which mankind 
cannot afford to lose. 

The American Revolution was the realization of the dream 
of a great nationality — or rather the necessary and irresistible 
outbirth, sooner or later, of an instinctive feeling of nationality. 
The most superficial survey of the continent, the most meagre 
comprehension of the true extent of their possible possessions, 
and the field for empire opened before them, must have begot- 
ten in the advance minds of the time the first feeble pulsations 
of national life, the first rising aspirations after social auto- 
nomy. And these pulsations and aspirations must have been 
perpetually strengthened by every new discovery of the vast 
possibilities before them, and the incapacity of the old order to 
meet the requirements of the case. It seems hardly within the 
ordinary range of conjecture to suppose that the proper and 
natural development of this continent could have been reached 
as a mere dependency of the British crown, or as the frag- 
mentary dependencies of several European sovereignties. And 
as the vast possibilities of their country's future would glimmer 
faintly, even, before the vision of the patriots of the Revolution, 
they might well count no cost too dear, no sacrifice too great, 
to bestow such an inheritance upon their children. 

But what, now, of this Southern Confederacy? What ulti- 
mate good do they propose as an offset to the aggravated evils 
of revolution ? What great world idea moves them to do, and 
dare, and suffer? Perhaps some of their ambitious leaders 
have had their dreams of empire, too. Perhaps visions of 
expansion, and conquest, and illimitable grandeur, have floated 
before their waking hours. Perhaps they have been bold 
enough, in their speculative flights, to project for themselves a 
nationality, based distinctively upon slavery, which would aston- 
ish the world by its successful working and practical results. 
It is a bold idea, certainly, but whether it be a living thought- 
birth of the genius of history, or an ignis fatuus, luring to 
ruin, time alone will determine. Doubtless at this moment, to 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 27 

the moral perceptions of the vast majority of Christendom, it 
seems more like the dream of a maniac. But is this the ulti- 
mate good they propose ? We think it is. It appears, with 
more or less distinctness, in the published speeches of their 
leading men. It is seen in some of the features of their Con- 
stitution itself. Instead of one great nationality, unique, 
compact, yet multiform in its minor features, truly e pluribus 
unum, combining the restless energy and world-conquering 
power of the sons of the frosty North, and the fervid imagina- 
tion and generous impulses of the children of the sunny South ; 
yielding the corn of the broad prairies, and the cotton and 
sugar of the warm sea isles and savannahs ; sweeping on in one 
great, broad stream of social grandeur; chiming in the ear of 
history like a full diapason, in which all the tones, from deep- 
est bass to lightest alto, are heard — instead of this, they pro- 
pose to give us two great nationalities, each one-sided and 
narrow in its features, each at fault for want of the comple- 
ment of the other, perhaps each watching with jealous and 
hostile eye every movement of the other; or, worse still, if 
their theory of government be consistently held, they propose 
to give us a dozen or more petty sovereignties, discordant and 
jarring, and doing their best to devour one another. This is 
the ultima thule of secession. This is the final end to which 
they look to justify the horrors of revolution. For this, is it, 
that they have pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their 
sacred honour? So it would seem. 

What, then, is the special and particular significance of this 
Southern rebellion? What leading idea lies at the root of it? 
Into what formula may we compress its essential, central 
meaning? By what definition may we limit and distinguish it, 
so as to embody its heart and core, its real purpose and final 
aim ? We answer this : It is the struggle of a false civilization 
for supremacy, or at least independence. 

All high civilization rests upon labour as its natural and 
essential basis. There must be a broad and permanent basis 
of toil, on which to rear its lofty and graceful proportions. 
Labour is the true measure of value ; hence labour is the 
parent of wealth. The earth must be made to yield her in- 
crease, her mineral resources must be dragged forth from their 



28 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

rocky beds, and the myriad sons of labour must change, modi- 
fy, refine, and convert to the uses of man, the agricultural 
and mineral products of the earth, or mankind can never rise 
above the condition of roaming shepherd tribes or savage 
hunters. Now, while all agree in these general premises, the 
distinction between the Northern and Southern conception of 
civilization is this — that in the North we believe this labour 
ought to be voluntary and free, incited by the hope of reward, 
stimulated by the lure of gain, made steady and reliable by the 
hope of personal independence and of constantly rising to a 
more desirable elevation in the social scale. This the Northern 
mind believes to be the true theory of the highest civilization ; 
to be most consonant with the universal kinship and ultimate 
perfectibility of the human race, or any part thereof; and to 
be most nearly allied to the conceptions of the founders of this 
great republic of the setting sun. Whilst, on the other hand, 
the ruling sentiment of the South is, that this labour ought to 
be a matter of property; that it ought to be owned, like the 
soil or the mines, and that it ought to pertain to a distinct and 
separate class, working under compulsion, and for ever bound 
to that estate of toil — at least unable to rise above it by any 
provision of the system itself. This is their conception of the 
true relation between labour and capital, between labour and 
civilization. And it may be readily conceded that, in certain 
contingencies and relations of races, this theory may be accepted 
as a provisional arrangement. We are no such advocates of 
the abstract rights of man as to suppose that those rights may 
not at times be held in abeyance, by necessity or expediency. 
And we think the fact is indisputable that, until recently, the 
great majority of Christian people in the South held to this 
view of the case, i. e., that slavery was a provisional arrange- 
ment, and not a finality; in other words, they held to the 
theory of expediency, or the "toleration theoi'y," as opposed 
to the "sin theory" on the one hand, and the "Divine right 
theory" on the other, according to the classification of Dr. 
Frederick B. Ross. And we think the fact equally clear, that 
this has been the position of the Presbyterian church from the 
beginning — a position from which the advocates of the "sin 
theory" on the one hand, and the advocates of the "Divine 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 29 

riglit theory" on the other, in vain attempted to drive or 
seduce her. And had the mind of the whole country been 
content to repose in this position, had the storms of fanaticism 
not howled from the North, nor an equally fatal madness per- 
vaded the South, this trouble, humanly speaking, Avould not 
have occurred either in church or state. Had the mind of the 
whole country rested in the doctrine of the fathers, that slavery 
was a provisional arrangement, a local or municipal institution, 
to be continued, modified, or removed, as circumstances indi- 
cated, by those who were responsible for it, the North would 
have been ever ready, as we believe the great mass of its peo- 
ple have ever been, to concede to the South, under the Consti- 
tution, all that pertains to their peculiar institution, and the 
Southern people would not have been changed into fanatical 
slavery propagandists. But it is manifest that the doctrine of 
expediency, or the toleration theory, has been steadily, and of 
late rapidly, giving way in the South, supplanted by a type of 
thought more affirmative and positive in the interest of slavery 
— a type of thought which accepts it, not as a provisional 
arrangement, but as a finality, the divinely ordained relation 
between labour and capital, and the permanent basis of the 
highest civilization. 

Now we will readily admit, that if the doctrine of the unity 
of the race could be dispensed with ; if the proper humanity of 
the labouring class in the South could be set aside, this South- 
ern theory of the relation between labour and civilization might 
be readily acquiesced in by the whole world. But how it can 
be held consistently with the doctrine of oneness of blood and 
of origin between the races, we cannot imagine; and we will 
venture to predict, that if this Southern rebellion is successful, 
the doctrine of diversity of origin will be ably urged, from 
Southern sources, upon the attention of mankind, before the 
close of the century. 

This theory, then, of the relation of ownership between 
labour and capital, has given type to Southern sentiment, 
Southern policy, and Southern civilization. And the political 
leaders, warned by the ever-widening disparity revealed by 
each returning census, have been making a bold push to secure 
the supremacy of this theory, as the controlling policy of the 



30 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

government. No other rational interpretation can be given of 
the eflforts at legislation of certain Southern leaders, aided by 
their Northern abettors, during the last ten years. And when 
the great and populous North — great and populous, because of 
its free labour and wider civilization — demurred, and in fact at 
length flatly refused, and by virtue of its superior ability to 
vote, placed a man in the presidential chair, as the representa- 
tive of a different policy, then the tocsin of revolution, under 
the specious plea of secession, was sounded, and the great body 
of the South, much against the judgment and will of a large 
mass of her people, was at length whirled into the abyss. Such 
then, as we believe, is the true, distinctive character of this 
movement. Stripped of all its accessories, it is the struggle of 
a false civilization for supremacy; and failing of that, for 
independence. 

Many other topics of this prolific subject might claim atten- 
tion. We might go on to speak of the probabilities or impro- 
babilities of the success of this revolution, and of the manner in 
which it has been initiated and conducted. We might speak of 
the pretended right of secession, as of necessity the disinte- 
gration of all government, and hence so utterly fallacious as 
a governmental theory, that no government could possibly 
embody it as a radical part of its organization. We might 
speak further of the effect this great crisis may have upon the 
future structure and policy of the government, and show that 
whether it terminate one way or the other, it must beget 
organic changes in our political fabric. We might speak also 
of the effects which the war may have upon us as a people, and 
show by the analogies of history, that great wars are not 
always of necessity great calamities upon a people; that by a 
merciful arrangement of Providence, the people, except in the 
immediate scene of conflict, go on sowing and reaping, eating 
and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, as though 
nothing of the kind were occurring. God has provided that 
the great framework of society shall stand unharmed amid 
these local tumults, just as the universal frame of nature stands 
intact when earthquakes rock and tempests blow. But we must 
forego these topics. 

There is but one other belonging to this general class of 



/ 






The History and Theory of Revolutions. 31 

topics, to which we shall revert. It is, that this civil commotion 
is not to be the ruin of our American civilization, nor the death 
of the Saxon race on this continent, nor the wreck of the hopes 
of mankind, so widely centered upon this great experiment of 
popular government. Our civilization is too young to be 
blasted, our nation too young to die. What the precise issue 
of our present troubles will be, no one can tell. What the 
specific solution of the great national problem forced upon us 
will be, no prophet can foresee. But that there is a solution 
awaiting us — a solution in the interest of civilization, and of 
Christian, human progress — no one, we think, can doubt. 
Shall we believe that the Saxon race, with its wondrous vital- 
ity, its adamantine vigour, its unbroken energy, its power to 
overcome obstacles, to surmount difficulties, to adapt itself to 
circumstances, to solve questions of the practical intellect, and 
to make a virtue of any necessity which may be forced upon 
it? Shall we believe that this Saxon race, at the present 
stage of its development, in the fulness and exuberance of its 
bounding life, is about to commit suicide? Shall we believe 
that this youthful nationality is about to be wrecked for ever? 
That would be to belie all history. No man who believes that 
history has a meaning can entertain such a conception for a 
moment. Not more surely do the arranging of the letters of 
the alphabet, by intelligence, indicate certain words and 
thoughts, than does the alphabet of the Divine Providence, 
arranging itself now for three hundred years — yea, perhaps we 
may say truthfully, for eighteen hundred years — indicate 
another issue than that for our national problem and our 
Christian civilization. A predestined purpose will infallibly 
guaranty the means thereto. To the Christian who has the 
eye of his faith fixed upon the shining portals of the heavenly 
city, there is a firm and sure pathway of stone, even through 
the midst of the Slough of Despond. So the man who sees in 
the elements and antecedents of our national existence a pur- 
pose worthy of history, worthy of God, and essential to man- 
kind, will believe that a solution of our present troubles is 
awaiting us, even though it should conic to us from beyond the 
stars! Though our good ship of state may have got among 
the breakers, yea, though roaring Scylla may be heard upon 



32 The History and Theory of Revolutions. 

the one hand, and devouring Charybdis may yawn upon the 
other, yet so great is our confidence in the strength of the 
helm, and in the skill and purpose of the Divine steersman, 
that we believe it will plow safely through the surging foam, 
and yet ride the tranquil bosom of the wave, like a thing of 
life! 

And we may further briefly express our own unfaltering con- 
viction, that the only pathway of safety and existence for us 
now, is that of vigorous and deadly warfare. The malignant 
virus of a causeless and wicked rebellion cannot be purged from 
the body politic by mild sedatives. It needs blood-letting. In 
the lanofuage of an eminent Southern leader, "the argument is 
ended, we now stand to our arms," and we will not lay them 
down until the sword has fulfilled its mission, and wanton 
armed resistance to constituted authority be driven from the 
land. When that is done, we may hope to see a reconstruction, 
if not a restoration. "When wild war's deadly blast is blown," 
we may hope to hail again the return of "the piping times of 
peace," when, according to rare old Ben Johnson, "every man 
can stand under the eaves of his own hat, and sing his own 
song." And let us hope that we will emerge from this conflict 
chastened and sobered, made wiser and better, more charitable 
and appreciative of each other; prepared to bury old feuds, 
and extinguish old animosities, and to turn joyfully to the 
grander and more genial conquests which have distinguished us 
hitherto — the triumphs of the arts of peace — "the winter of 
our discontent made glorious summer, and all the clouds that 
lowered upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean 
buried." 

A word, in conclusion, as to our foreign relations. It has 
been manifest from the beginning, that one of the great perils 
growing out of this rebellion was the danger of our becoming 
embroiled with some of the other nations of the earth. That 
peril, as an ever-existing fact, is becoming every day more 
apparent. We are gratified, however, to observe a strong dis- 
position on the part of the government, to avoid a hostile 
entanglement with foreign nations, by every means in its 
power, consistent with the preservation of national honour. In 
the progress of this struggle, a thousand complications and 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 33 

unforeseen casualties must arise, which will demand the wisest 
statesmanship, and the utmost self-control, to carry us safely 
through, without offence to foreign powers. It is not our pur- 
pose to speculate upon the probabilities or improbabilities of a 
war with England, or any other foreign power, or to conjecture 
the course and ultimate result of such a war, or to endeavour 
to forecast the wide-spread complications to which it might 
give rise, both on this continent and in Europe. This is not 
our province. Suffice to say, that if it does occur, it will 
probably make history enough to occupy the pens of several 
generations. 

It is our purpose, rather, to say that there is one thing 
which we should assuredly be taught by the menace with 
which England preceded and accompanied her negotiations 
with us on the point so recently in dispute,* and that is, 
that we should henceforth make ourselves more powerful, both 
by sea and by land. It is manifest that the millennium is not 
yet upon us. We are still in the "state militant." A few 
years ago, our popular orations and much of our literature was 
rife with "the peace-tendencies of the present age." But the 
dream has fled. The nation that beats its swords into plough- 
shares before the time, will have to forge new ones, or be 
dashed to pieces. There is no advantage in deluding ourselves 
with impracticable theories. Peace congresses, Quaker prin- 
ciples, and millenarian preaching may be studied as auspicious 
harbingers of a promised future, but for present use they are 
not to be accounted of. It is clear that the old governing 
principle of all the ancient world, viz., /orce, still holds largely 
in human history. To be able to enjoy peace, we must be able 
to make war, and have the world so understand it. There are 
some questions in the entangled relations of national affairs, 
which cannot be settled, as mankind stand now, save by the 
stern arbitrament of the sword. Hence we should put our 
military organization on a basis to contend with any in the 
world. We should increase, vastly and permanently, the 
defences of the country, and greatly extend the facilities for 
the military education of our people. If the millions of dollars 

* The seizure of Mason and Slidell. 



3i Tlie History and Theory of Revolutions. 

which we have spent in the last twenty-five years in foreign 
purchases to gratify the luxurious tastes and minister to the 
vanity of our people, had been spent upon the defences of the 
country, England would not have preceded her official corres- 
pondence with us by brandishing her mailed fist in our face. 

We are not unmindful of the danger of large standing 
armies ; but we should not alarm ourselves by parallels Avhich 
are destitute of force. A large standing army in the hands 
and under the pay of a selfish despot is one thing; a standing 
army which is part of a great people is another thing. Our 
military organization should form an integral part of our 
people, and with the powerful popular tendencies which have 
become ingrain to us, working irresistibly toAvards the realiza- 
tion and maintenance of republican institutions, we can see 
nothing alarming in a standing army of sufficient magnitude to 
secure order at home and respect abroad. 

Especially does it behoove us, as speedily as possible, to 
create and maintain a powerful navy. The main strength of 
most great nations lies upon the sea. Ever since the discovery 
of the mariner's compass, the great maritime nations have 
ruled the destinies of the world. When Venice, in her palmy 
days, led the commerce of the world, it was essential to her 
that she should be great at sea as a naval power. When 
Spain was the first power in Europe — when she held Asia, 
Africa, America, and the half of Europe in her giant grasp, 
it was because she was mistress of the sea, and her commerce 
and her treasure-ships poured into her lap the gems of the 
Indies and the gold of Peru. When her great Armada threat- 
ened England in 1588, the poetry and literature of the time 
abounded in metaphor, describing old ocean as groaning under 
the cumbrous weight. When the Dutch Republic, with her 
small, dyke-bound territory, made herself respected as a power 
in the ends of the earth, it was because her amphibious sons 
were at home upon the vasty deep. The bold Admiral who 
tied a broom to his mast-head, was a representative man. 
England has held her rank amongst the nations mainly by the 
power of her navy ; and France, though confessedly the first 
power in Europe in military operations on land, is scarcely 



I 



The History and Theory of Revolutions. 35 

inferior in her naval strength. We should henceforth deter- 
mine to surpass them all. A nation possessing more sea-coast 
than any other in the world — whose shores are Avashed for 
thousands of miles by two great oceans on opposite sides — a 
nation who«e commerce is whitening every sea, and is destined 
to extend into every inlet and harbour of the habitable globe — 
a nation possessing harbours on whose broad bosoms all the 
argosies of Venice could ride in safety — such a nation ought 
to possess a navy inferior to none other in the civilized world. 
In fact, the mind of the country cannot but stand appalled at 
the utterly defenceless condition in which we have been, as 
against attack by any of the great maritime powers of 
Europe. 

Such are some of the lessons which this rebellion and its 
attendant circumstances should teach us. It was doubtless 
necessary for us to learn these lessons. It was assuredly bet- 
ter we should learn them now than later in our history, and 
perhaps the particular method taken to teach us is, on the 
whole, the cheapest and best. And when we shall have learned 
them, and acted on them practically, we shall stand firm, calm, 
self-poised, in the simple majesty of power beneficent to bless, 
yet terrible to strike, guaranteeing rational liberty to the sub- 
ject at home, yet enforcing the claims of constituted authority; 
compelling, by the unanswerable arguments of rifled cannon 
and iron-bound ships, an honourable recognition and respect 
abroad; and, having got beyond the excesses, and foibles, and 
boastful delusions of our youth, we shall settle down to the 
proper work, an<l the enduring triumphs of our national man- 
hood. 










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